Actually, I’m not. But, I’m going to try to be better.
So, I’ve been doing some thinking and, after spending two months being completely dissatisfied with where I wound up in The Unexiled I’ve scrapped it and started over.
From the beginning.
For the fourth time.
I’ve reworked my outline a bit, reconsidered the culture I had developed for some of the major groupings, tweaked the world history, and sat down a lot, staring at the ground, talking to myself, and I think I’ve worked out the problems I kept encountering. I know the large framework I want to write but it was the details that kept trapping me. However, I am cautiously confident that draft four will be the final draft.
Of course, draft four is currently all of six pages long.
Sometimes I wonder about my own sanity.
At any rate, I’ve also decided to hold myself to a schedule on it like I do for Alayne’s Story. So, starting this Friday, I will email out whatever I have to anyone interested in reading it. I’ll have to find a .doc to .pdf converter but I will start emailing it out every two weeks. This means that I will no longer be doing more than five pages on Alayne’s Story each week, though. Please don’t get upset about that. I’ll explain:
It comes down to an issue of time. There are 24 hours in a day. On average, I’m at work for twelve of those (but I have a two hour lunch break because my boss is awesome). I sleep about six to eight of those. I play WoW for about two of those. My commute to and from work is about one hour each way. So…
10 hours working
7 hours sleeping
2 hours commuting
+ 2 hours for WoW
——————–
21 hours I can’t write
Now, admittedly math is not my strong point but 24 – 21 = 3 hours of free time per day. I could cut out WoW entirely (and piss of my guild and a lot of my friends) for a total of five hours but then how do I keep on top of the material I need for Alayne’s Story? I mean, I could skimp like I did for a lot of the Burning Crusade raids but I’ve found that I can give a better description of the encounters and the motivations for participating in them if I have, you know, actually run the encounters a few times.
Now, in the three hours I have per day to write, I can generally get about five pages of material written. That means about two pages per story. On weekends, I can do more but on weekends, I like to do things like play WoW more, read, relax, go to this place called “Outside” where there are crazy things like a big burning ball in the sky and white puffy things. Oh, there are trees and plants (but you’re not allowed to gather them for Alchemy) and animals (but you don’t get experience for killing them and the loot sucks. Plus people get mad at you if you attack them. Not sure why…). I know, it’s a mad-house.
So, since I have to work for a living because my bills won’t pay themselves and far too many people don’t believe in doing something and getting nothing but my eternal gratitude in return, I have to prioritize things. I do actually want to finish The Unexiled before hell freezes over. That means I’ll have to slow down on Alayne’s Story a bit. I will also be cutting back how much I play WoW some but I’m not going to stop entirely.
I know some writers can sit down and crank out ten pages in an hour. I applaud them. I envy them. I ain’t one of them. So, I just need everyone to be patient, to understand that I’ve got to schedule my time better, and that, while you won’t be getting everything you want, you’ll be getting an update every week (every two weeks for The Unexiled). That’s the best I can do.
And now, back to work. My boss has this crazy idea that I’m actually supposed to work instead of goofing off. Silly man.
Real Life
Exhausted
I have been so exhausted for the past couple of days that I think a coma is in order to get my energy level back up above “zombie” in the evenings.
I’ve been back at work for a week now. I have my good days and my bad but even on better days, I find myself so damned tired by the time I get home that I can barely lift my feet off the ground to walk into the apartment. I haven’t fallen asleep on the bus (yet) but that’s only because I keep my music blasting fairly hard and generally drink a Coke in the afternoon before I leave the office.
It’s the having to “be myself” at work that I was before my brother died that’s draining me so much right now. It didn’t used to take this much energy to be witty, sarcastic, silly, and still pretty damned competent and efficient at my job in the past. That’s always been so easy that I still had plenty of energy left over for raiding or running dungeons in the evenings. Now I’m lucky if I can string together a coherent paragraph in Alayne’s Story after work. I hear my own voice over Ventrilo and I know I sound “off” at home but damned if I can find the energy to inject any kind of emotion in my voice other than the “Jesus Christ I’m tired and I want to go to bed” feeling.
And no, I’m not whining and saying that you guys won’t get an update. You’ll get one this week. And every week after that for the foreseeable future. I’m just so frickin’ tired, though, and I don’t really have any other place to whine about it than here.
Right, enough of that. Bed and then back to the grind tomorrow.
What a week…
God help me; I never want to go through another week like that again. Ever.
I got absolutely no writing done. I barely had my computer turned on. I spent most of my time with my parents. My brother’s visitation and funeral were beautiful and very well attended. I think there were over 400 people at both. AMR and all of the local volunteer fire houses had their trucks out there to escort him from the funeral home to the cemetery. It was really nice to see just how many friends he had and how well-liked he was.
On top of that, we found out he had a daughter. So, I’m an aunt.
I’m back home myself now. Jet-lagged and tired but home. I’ll go back to work some time this week. I’ll get started on my writing again and will, hopefully, post an update this Friday. However, for now, I’m just really tired and really glad that last week is over. Part of me is still hoping I’ll wake up to find it was just a really vivid (and really bad) dream.
Horribly behind schedule this week
I am way behind even my revised (five pages) schedule this week. I have not been able to sit up very long or stay off the toilet much. Notice that I’m posting this entry at Godawful O’clock? Guess who’s being kept up all night again by the Stomach Bug from Hell? If you guessed “Alayne” then you’re right! Cookies for you!
At least maybe I’ll get some writing done and get somewhat caught up while I’m trying not to make a mess everywhere.
(Btw, no, I’m not toilet-blogging. The cord on my laptop doesn’t reach that far. Yes, I did test it. Hey, you come get whatever the hell it is I have and then you can judge me).
I hate being sick
I really do. It sucks. I’ve caught some kind of intestinal bug from hell. This means that I will be lucky to crank out five pages this week. I have zero energy; I’m at home right now wondering if I really and truly need intestines.
However, I’m doing good on the quitting smoking front. Over a week since my last. Go me. 🙂
My husband
Can scare the absolute crap out of me. I may kill him when he gets home.*
Today, as per usual, he sent me a message around lunch time so we could discuss what he needed to get at the store. He does this every day between noon and 2 pm without fail. I was busy with some work at the moment and told him to hold on for a second. A few minutes later, I replied to him and then waited.
A little background: my husband has been known to pass out. It doesn’t happen often. It’s been years since it happened last but the last times it did happen he was either ill or under stress. He’s just finished his dissertation and has his defense coming up. That means he’s a little stressed and worried. He wasn’t feeling great this weekend. So, today, when he stopped responding to my messages and didn’t answer the cell phone and didn’t answer the apartment phone when I called after almost three hours of no response, I started to get a little worried that he had passed out and maybe hit his head.
So, like any normal wife, I finish everything I had to do for today in about ten minutes, told my supervisor, and rushed home.
…to an empty apartment.
So, I called him. Guess what? He had a meeting with his adviser which he forgot to tell me about. He didn’t say a word over the messenger to tell me he was going. Just left it there. So, from 4:45 until 6:30, I had the joy of freaking out, imagining him home, pouring over his dissertation, making corrections, not feeling well, passing out and cracking open his skull with no one here to know or call for help and his ass was down at his university talking to his adviser.
He’s on his way home now. I may kill him when he gets here.* No jury on earth would convict.
*I would not seriously kill my husband. This is what we call “sarcasm.”
Red vs Blue
I just found this awesome video series called Red vs Blue. It’s hilarious. So far, I can’t decide if Church or Caboose is my favorite. Though, I do love Sarge as well. 🙂 If you haven’t seen it, just Google “Red vs Blue.” It’s from Rooster Tooth and I guarantee it’s worth the hours wasted on it.
Stormcrows vs Paris (Day 6)
Yesterday we went up to EuroDisney where we had a blast. 🙂 We grabbed lunch at one of the cafés and then immediately got on Space Mountain. That was fun. 🙂 Well, it was just me, Nishi, and Crit who rode it (Grog and Jemu were playing “chicken shit”). In all, we rode Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain (Jemu sat out), the Temple of Doom (just me and Nishi), rode through the Haunted House (all of us), saw the Armageddon Special Effects set (it sucked), rode the tram around the backlot area (all of us), and went on the Aerosmith ride (just me and Nishi; it was nuts).
Nishi kept eyeing the Tower of Terror but I told him he would need to supply copious amounts of booze to get me to go on that thing. I know my limits. Put me on a roller coaster, toss me upside down, take me on corkscrew and hairpin turns: fine. Put me in an elevator and drop me? I’m gonna lose it.
We got several pictures, some nice souvenirs, and some very tired feet and legs. Today, we’re probably just going to hang around my place. I’ve got to see if the owner meant “Friday” when she said she would come by on Thursday. Not to mention: I am a tired little belf.
Pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/reggydejongh/StormcrowsVsParis#
Stormcrows vs Paris (Day 5)
Yesterday, we planned to hit Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the Montparnasse Tower. However, we only managed to get to the top of Notre Dame. The top of the Eiffel Tower was closed due to wind and we didn’t really want to go up the Montparnasse Tower. So, instead, we visited the Tomb of Napoleon and went to the Ancient Arms and Armors museum next to it (we’re all a bunch of medievalists at heart).
We saw Ger’alin. On Lucky. Yes, we have screenshot.
Napoleon’s Tomb is one of the more interesting but less-visited places in Paris. It wasn’t crowded there at all. Napoleon styled himself after the Caesars and you can see the Roman influence in his tomb.
Anyhow, today is Disney Day! Groggy and Crit should be over soon and we’ll be heading over to see da Mouse!
Pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/reggydejongh/StormcrowsVsParis#
Stormcrows vs Paris (Day 4)
Yesterday we went over to Versailles to see the palace there.
Man, it was good to be da King.
That place is huge. And beautiful. We walked all through it. The Hall of Mirrors is really nice. I’m a writer and I’m at a loss for words to describe it. We took loads of pictures (soon to be uploaded). We also swung by and saw Nishi and Jemuya and got a photo of all five of us together.
Today, we’re back off to Notre Dame to go up the towers and back to the Eiffel Tower to go to the top of it. Should our energy permit, we’ll go up the Montparnasse Tower as well. And tomorrow is Disney Day!
Pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/reggydejongh/StormcrowsVsParis#